INGLEWOOD – On stage at the YouTube Theater, Rams general manager Les Snead turned to the crowd of season ticket holders at Rams Revealed Live and asked what he should do with the team’s first-round draft pick. A chorus of suggestions rose up, so many that they rendered each other indiscernible.
“You see,” Snead said, grinning, “this is exactly like a draft meeting.”
The Rams’ held their first such meeting on Monday, jump-starting the next phase of their off-season as prospects gather this week in Indianapolis for the NFL draft combine. As has become their custom in recent years, the Rams won’t send any executives, coaches or scouts to Lucas Oil Stadium, just their medical staff to perform physicals.
Regardless, the Rams brain trust begins the work of crystalizing the Rams’ draft board this week, from meetings discussing the merits of certain prospects to virtually recording measurables from the combine as new data points.
And the Rams could end up using a first-round pick for the first time since 2016, No. 19 overall to be exact.
Head coach Sean McVay joked last week about whether or not the Rams would actually use the pick, or trade it for some other asset. Like the 2017 pick, which was used to move up to No. 1 and draft Jared Goff. Or 2018, which was traded for Brandin Cooks. Or 2020 and 2021, which turned into Jalen Ramsey, like 2022 and 2023 turned into Matthew Stafford. Then there was 2019, when the Rams traded down from No. 31 three times to end up at No. 61.
But the Rams recognize that having this year’s first rounder, particularly with where it is in the draft, gives them new options this off-season.
“I think that’s the great thing if you sit at 19, conceptually, is you’re going to have a bunch of players probably fall to you who you had as top-15 picks,” COO Kevin Demoff explained to reporters backstage at the YouTube Theater. “You may have the chance if someone falls who you have as a top-eight pick and they fall…
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